A great leader needs to love and respect people, and he needs to be comfortable with himself and with the world. He also needs to be able to forgive himself and others. - In other words, a leader needs grace.

“As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on thing and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down you cannot see something that is above you.” C.S. Lewis: 1898 –1963: was a British novelist, poet, & academic)

Gospel Text: (LK 9:51-56)

When the days for Jesus to be taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem, and he sent messengers ahead of him. On the way they entered a Samaritan village to prepare for his reception there, but they would not welcome him because the destination of his journey was Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?" Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they journeyed to another village.

James and John, in this gospel reading, advocate a rather extreme course of action, which Christ reprimands them for.

So just what is it which Christ would prefer from us instead of their blood-and-thunder approach?

That would be hard to spell out both accurately and in each case in our lives today. I suspect that He would wish us to pray hard for those we disagree with and to live charitably with those whom we think we can justifiably condemn; I am certain that He would ask us to treat others gently, as brothers and sisters, and to do what we can to change them by love --- which can even lead to us being changed ourselves, and to our growing in the process.

That calls for profound humility and patience, for letting ourselves truly become instruments of God's peace in our families and communities, and for leaving the outcome squarely in God's hands.